


Ib-Obri' u Matarbul'arâs

by lferion



Series: Iron and Light [22]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Fireworks, Gen, Khazâd November, fun times in ered luin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 05:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9477353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: Nori and things that blow up





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go to Zana & Morgynleri for encouragement & sanity-checking. Part of Iron & Light. Title means 'The Art of Explosions and Fireworks'. Image found here: [This Is Colossal](http://www.thisiscolossal.com/tags/fireworks/)
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://lferion.tumblr.com/post/153548871680/khazad-november-nori) on Tumblr for Day 11 of Khazâd November, though it took me a while to write & post it, as it insisted on being a proper story.

* * *

As a pebble, Nori only stole fireworks once. (Admittedly, shortly after that he didn't exactly have to steal them, but that rather eliminated the challenge, you know?) Preparations for Green Lady Day in Ered Luin were in full spate, food for the feasting occupying cooks and anyone else who could be roped into helping chop, stir, turn or baste; musicians tuning, dwarves in charge of the contests of skill and endurance setting up the courses, which left the fireworks display briefly attended only by a pair of very junior guards. Nori was in and out like winking, sparklers in one hand, something satisfyingly weighty in the other. 

He dashed off, prizes in his jacket, looking to find some place reasonably safe to set them off. Safe was relative when speaking of explosives, as Nori surely knew, and chose to ignore. The washing-spot by the stream was quite deserted at dusk of a holiday-eve, and the gurgle and splash of water would cover a multitude of mischief. The sparklers went off with colorful fountains of sparks reflected in water, dancing like fireflies. 

The big firework had a shorter fuse than Nori expected, or maybe it just burned faster than he thought it would — he'd never been allowed to properly observe the miners who worked the charges that opened new veins, being much too young yet, and Master Kharur the firework-maker was even more secretive about their Art. It went off with a noise like thunder, barely overhead, stunning his ears and dazzling his eyes with flashes of gold and blue and white, crimson and green. Sparks fizzed on his skin, singed clothes and skin, until he had the wit to jump in the stream. It was _Glorious_ (and frightening, the sound a thump in his chest, a ringing crack and boom and rattle that rolled around inside him, terrifying and exhilarating) and despite being shaken he wanted to do it again.

When Nori scrambled back up the stream-bank, there was a very familiar pair of toe-caps waiting for him. Not Dori's, thank the Maker, but not really better. Thorin stood like a thundercloud, watching him with a frown that sent Nori's heart straight back down to his (sodden) boots. Had he hurt someone? Ori was with the other infants under the eye of Ma Bragur, the other side of the tree line. Not very far, really. Not far enough?

"No-one is hurt, Nori son of Vori, though not for want of effort on your part." There was a note Nori could not interpret in Thorin's voice. The exasperation was clear enough, if far more muted than ever it was with Dori, but the rest sounded like it could almost be amusement, but this was _Thorin_ who was never amused so far as Nori could tell. He kept his eyes prudently on Thorin's etched toe-caps. 

“You certainly look contrite, not to mention bedraggled, which is punishment enough for one of Master Dori’s kin, on a holiday I should think.” The odd note _was_ amusement. And … sympathy? It was too early for Thorin to be drunk — not that he was known for over-indulging even on holidays — and there was no mockery in his tone either. Nori cautiously raised his eyes to see Thorin with a wry and (if Nori didn't know better, which he _did_ , thank you) conspiratorial smile quirking his lips and the corners of his eyes. “But some more visible consequence is due. You did, after all, make off with one of Master Kharur’s fireworks, and cause something of a ruckus. You have a choice: do I hand you over to Dori, or Kharur?”

Nori knew all too well the peal Dori would ring over him, and if he got started this early the festivities, Nori would be likely stuck with washing-up duty until dawn broke. Master Kharur was fearsome and largely unknown as to temper. It would be a different peal at any rate.

“Kharur, please,” Nori said, daring.

He was rewarded with an unexpected and actual grin from Thorin. “Excellent choice. They were bending my ear earlier about not having help with set-up for the display. You’ll be pounding sand in no time.”

Pounding sand? Nori’s sinking feelings must have shown clearly in his face, because Thorin’s smile only grew wider, and the grip of the royal hand on Nori’s wet shoulder was quick and firm. “No backing out now,” Thorin said as he hauled Nori upright and began propelling him back to the scene of his thievery. “I expect you to do well for Master Kharur, and for us all.” The warning in his voice was real, but so was the smile. Nori didn't know what to make of it.

Soon enough he _was_ pounding sand, but Kharur _explained_ why it was necessary, and that the pounding must be precise, so that the metal tubes the high aerial charges were launched from were solidly in place, so as not to send the lit and incipient explosion hither and thither and cause harm. The lecture was accompanied by a very pointed Look under a raised eyebrow, but Nori allowed as how he did deserve it. As the night deepened toward midnight and the festivities grew louder around them, Nori helped lay stiff and interestingly odd-smelling tarps over chests filled with paper-wrapped ovals with long tails very like the one he had stolen  & set off — some of them much larger even — set like eggs in straw. He was sent to fetch buckets and buckets of water, then more sand to be dampened and piled like a miniature volcano between the array of tubes and the chests, where the backup coals for the lighting spills would be safe yet accessible. He was sent to fetch supper for himself and Kharur and his two miner-helpers who finally deigned to show up. (A third had shown up as well, obviously tipsy, and Kharur had sent him off with a really impressive incandescent fury at the thoughtless stupidity of combining drunkenness with dangerous and delicate working with things intended to explode. Had he no respect for the material Mahal had made? For the Art? For the work-crew he endangered and the audience also? They would not have it, no, not at all, even young Nori would know better, wouldn't he now? Nori had nodded and ducked and been quietly horrified at how thoughtless & ignorant he himself had been only hours earlier. He _did_ know better, and he discovered, watching the fellow slink off round-shouldered, that he wanted to know _more_.

For the show, Kharur set Nori to handing out the firework-eggs from the chests to the miners placing them in the tubes, being very sure to keep them under the fireproof covers, safe from sparks. There would be sparks, even with the fireworks going off high. Did Nori understand how important it was? He did. He really did. 

The display itself was like nothing else Nori had ever experienced; like the one firework, magnified a hundredfold, booming and dazzling and breathtaking, added to having a part of making it all happen. Part of a team, Making the most amazing, ephemeral Work, celebrating fire and earth, metal and minerals and glorious, wonderful explosions. 

When it was all over, and cleaned up (which didn't take as long as set up, but required much the same care), Nori walked home in the greying dawn, hardly hearing Dori’s lecture, even though his ears had recovered from being right under the fireworks going off, sound so loud he felt as much as heard it. Kharur had said he could come back, learn properly. Be part of the crew again next festival. 

“It takes clever fingers for this, my lad, which I see you have,” Kharur had said, after Thorin delivered a dripping Nori to him where he stood spry and wizened and peppered with burn-scars and ink, amidst a welter of bundles and chests that smelled interestingly of chemicals and blasting powder. “You should do very well.”

* * *

He hadn't thought of that youthful folly in years, but somehow the same ear-ringing, chest-hollowing sensation as of the world collapsing beneath ones feet stole Nori’s breath as he looked on Thorin’s too-still form. Not necessarily dead-and-gone to the Halls of the Maker, but not exactly here either. When had he let himself get so attached? 

It had started that day, that festival, with Thorin giving him a chance. A chance Thorin had no real reason to assume Nori would use for weal not woe. Nori had not in the end apprenticed to Kharur, though he learned much from him, and was a fixed part of the fireworks-crew from that day forward. Thorin gave — gave respect, honor, hope, defense, choice to his people, and kept little for himself. That had been the worst part of the dragon-spell, the gold-sickness, that it had twisted — inverted — his best qualities into their nightmare opposite. And having won free (and Thorin _had_ won free, obvious to everyone) and won the battle (the battle would not have been won without him, that too was obvious, and not merely to Nori) how cruel was it, that instead of being part of the work and making that came next, there was this? Stasis, stillness, stolen breath without the flash and spark and wonder of the firework? This wasn't something clever hands could fix.

* * *


End file.
